


A real person with real feelings

by Mierke



Category: Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, mentioned Luther/OC, some James
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 07:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20385856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mierke/pseuds/Mierke
Summary: Soulmates. You can love 'em (if you're June), or hate 'em (if you're Chloe), but they will surely mess up your life.





	A real person with real feelings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saiditallbefore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiditallbefore/gifts).

> For saiditallbefore, who wanted soulmate-identifying marks because of their 'potential for angst'. Hope this was what you're looking for!

"You're not real."

It was a New Year's Party, and Chloe danced past the drunk woman who was leaning against the wall near the bar.

"I know, right?!" Chloe answered, which was more suited an answer to the euphoric statement of "This is unreal" she thought she had heard. To be fair, it was a really good party, and she was really drunk. When the morning came, she would have forgotten all about this woman and her drunk enthusiasm, disgusted instead by the one who somehow was _still_ in her bed.

June, however, would wake up and realise just what had happened. She had met her soulmate, and she had no idea how to find her again.

* * *

Ever since June could remember, she had had dreams. Not just any dreams, but dreams about a particular person. A black-haired girl who grew up into a black-haired woman as June grew older. She never knew her name, but the girl was as real to her as the people she met at school.

As a child, she had talked about her from time to time, but her mom had always shushed her as if it was some kind of dirty secret she shouldn't let out.

"Is she my soulmate?" little June had asked once, and her mother had looked at her seriously and said: "Soulmates are a waste of your time. You just focus on you, little bean." After that, June had stopped asking.

Her parents hadn't been bonded. Her mother always said she knew her father was the one without the universe telling her so. If she had any words written on her - and some people didn't - June had never seen them. Her father had never, not once, talked about the string of words ("Why are you here?") that were written on his upper back.

Now, June absentmindedly traced the "I know, right?!" that was written along her wrist. There were so many theories about the placement of these soulmarks - some people claimed they could tell at which age you would meet your soulmate just by where it was written, other people said it was the first place you would touch, still other people thought it had something to do with the challenges you would face - but June had always figured it was just random.

Even so, she liked her soulmark. It felt comfortable, having these words on her skin, relieving her of the responsibility to find her own partner. Finding a job and a place to live in the city were hard enough without the distraction of dating.

Ever since coming to New York her dreams had stopped, which was weird, because it were her dreams that had led her here in the first place. Over the years, June had surmised that her dreams took place in New York City, and while she hadn't breathed a word of it to her parents, that was the main reason she had wanted to come. A small part of her still hoped this woman was her soulmate, and that she was in New York just waiting for her. So, okay, the woman partied like crazy, and June had woken up blushing from what she had seen more times than she could count, but maybe that was part of the attraction. She was everything June thought she could never be.

* * *

Chloe had grown up hearing about soulmates. Her parents had studied them for years and knew _everything_ about them. What their placement meant (absolutely nothing at all), how long they had been around (the earliest traces of soulmarks could be found in Homer's works), how soulmates were sure to find each other (if they were too far apart, dreams would nudge one of the two to the place they needed to be).

Ever since she was a young girl, Chloe had loathed the "You're not real" written in cursive on her left hip. She had rebelled against it, shouting _I am real _in every way she knew how, making sure nobody could ever doubt that she existed.

When she was sixteen, she had looked into getting her mark removed. She knew some people had it done; her parents would whisper about her aunt when they thought she wasn't listening. It was her doctor (patient confidentiality ensuring her parents wouldn't find out about it, because she'd still like to live at home these last few years, thank you very much) who told her all about the risks.

"You can never remove it completely," he had said. "Though the scars will fade over time to something that's only noticeable to the ones who know what was there before. However, the surgery _can_ kill you. The universe doesn't particularly like us messing with it, and thus seems to have built in some kind of fail-safe. If your soulmate is dead, you have about a 90% chance of survival. If they are still alive, it's about 50/50."

Since Chloe very much liked being alive, she had let go of that idea for now. Vaguely she wondered if maybe she could take out a hit on her soulmate once they met, but those were worries for later.

* * *

"Why are you spending your time on this woman?" her mother asked when June told her about meeting the woman of her dreams over Skype. "You've got more important things to worry about. How's the job going?"

"The job's fine, mom," June said. "Why are you so set against me finding my soulmate anyway? What's wrong with me wanting to find love?"

"It's not that I don't want you to find love," her mom said. "I just don't want you to get stuck on it. Those marks don't necessarily mean you will find him, you know."

"Or her," June said, and her mother shrugged. "Is that the problem? You don't want me ending up with a woman?"

"No!" Her mom sighed, and June could see the tension lines on her face, even through their Skype connection. She felt guilty, but also a little satisfied, as if her mom deserved it after all those years of keeping her from finding her happiness. "Your father found her once, you know."

"What?!" June leaned into her computer as if that would help drag the story out of her mother. "But dad never talks about it. And you're married."

"They were very young," her mother said. "We all were. We were best friends, thought the world would bend to our wills. That they were bonded should have made me a third wheel, but it never did. It was just always the three of us. But then..."

Her mother took a deep breath.

"She was killed in a car accident. Your father was inconsolable, grieving as if a part of him had been ripped out. It made sense to get married, not just because we genuinely loved each other, but because without Alice we were all we had left."

"But you've been happy, right?" June asked. Her mother smiled at her.

"Yes, June," she said. "We've been very happy. Which only goes to show you don't need your soulmate to find true happiness. And finding her only to lose her... It almost killed your father. I don't want that to happen to you."

The conversation veered into lighter territory then, but the story stayed with June over the following weeks. Should she stop looking for her soulmate? Did she want to risk all that pain, all that hurt, over someone who didn't even seem like such a good fit for her anyway? She buried herself in her work, trying to bury those questions with it, and for a while, all thoughts of meeting her soulmate were safely tucked away under lock and key in a corner of her brain.

* * *

June started dating Steven, a guy she met on one of the many after-work networking parties. He didn't ask about the words on her wrist; she didn't talk about the letters hidden in his inner thigh ("You must be Steven"). They were meaningless enough that June figured he'd given up on finding out who of the many people who had said that to him was his soulmate. She didn't know what he thought about her mark but was grateful for his discretion.

Her mom was delighted when she told her and insisted on coming to New York to meet him. At their greeting (her mom uttering the dreaded "You must be Steven") June felt nausea coming up, and she wondered whether she would feel that anxiety every time he met someone new.

How could she ever trust him completely when she knew there was someone better suited for him out there? Could she ask him to fully commit to her when one day he might find them? Then again, she reminded herself, she had never told him about finding her soulmate either. Who's to say he hadn't found them and had decided for one reason or another to not pursue them?

Just when she'd decided to trust him, when he had asked her to marry him and she had said yes, when her life seemed to be on track and her parents were happy, she saw _her_ again.

They bumped into each other on the subway of all places, the busy rush hour forcing them in such close proximity that June could smell her perfume.

"Hi!" she said brightly, and the woman looked at her as if she'd gone crazy. Maybe she had; by now June did know better than to talk to random strangers on the street, though when she'd first come to New York that had felt so foreign and lonely to her. "We met before."

The woman sized her up, apparently trying to place her.

"Have we?" she said dismissively, and June shrugged.

"You were kinda drunk," she said, and the woman snorted.

"That doesn't narrow things down much."

She looked her over a minute longer, then seemed to decide it didn't matter and turned away. June cast around in her mind, trying to think of something to keep her talking.

"Do you live around here?" As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she cringed. "Sorry, I sound like a stalker."

"That's okay, June. People get obsessed with me all the time."

The train stopped at the next station, and the woman moved to the exit.

"How do you-" June started to say, then figured that wasn't the important part. "What's your name?"

"Chloe," the woman called over her shoulder, and then she disappeared in the crowd.

June spent the rest of her subway ride in some sort of daze, emotions tumbling through her now she could finally put a name to the face. It wasn't until she undressed later that evening to change into something more comfortable for a night of TV and ice cream that she noticed she'd never taken off the name tag she had worn for the day's seminary. She took it off and wanted to throw it in the bin, but hesitated. Quickly she put it away in her bedside drawer, as if that was a perfectly normal thing to do, as if that’s where she kept her collection of name tags.

It was the only memento of Chloe she'd ever get, and it was stupid and sentimental, but she didn't want to let it go just yet.

* * *

"I met her!"

Chloe came rushing into James' apartment. He was working on a new script with Luther and, so used to Chloe's sudden appearances, didn't immediately respond.

"I said," Chloe emphasized. "I met her!"

"Your soulmate?" Luther asked, almost breathless as he turned back to her. Luther was one of the few people Chloe had ever met who could match her parents in the importance they put on the whole soulmate thing. He hadn't met his, yet, but he was convinced it would only be a matter of time. The words written around his ankle - "Yes, please" - had him working in food service for a while, until he realized no one in New York actually said 'please' to their retail workers. Chloe had always maintained it was a sexual thing, but Luther only scoffed at the implication he would ever have sex with someone he hadn't spoken to before.

"No, who cares about that," she said dismissively, and turned to James. "I have a stalker!"

"Didn't you already have Robin?" James asked as he shook himself all over, his way of getting rid of the character he had just let into his body. Chloe rolled her eyes at him.

"Robin doesn’t count," she said. "She's boring and annoying. No, this is a new one!"

She sat down on the couch, but an overflow of energy had her up and pacing the room again almost before her butt had touched the leather.

"Is she pretty?" James asked as he did sit down on the couch.

"Of course she's pretty," Chloe said. "Her name is June, she's blonde, and she started talking to me on the subway."

"Ouch!" James said.

"Are you sure she's not your soulmate?" Luther asked. "That would be such a wonderful story."

"Her first word to me was a very unimaginative 'hi'," Chloe said to him. "Fortunately nothing as traumatic as denying my entire existence in one breath. No, this was the real thing. I'm in lust."

She flopped down on the couch, her head almost in James' lap.

"I'm proud of you, Chloe," he said. "This is such an important moment in a person's life."

"I know!" Chloe said dreamily. "I think I might take that same subway again next week, just to help her, you know? Wouldn't want my stalker to lose track of me."

* * *

June had debated with herself over and over whether this was a good idea. Actually, she was pretty sure it wasn't. In a way her mom was right; she had Steven, and she had a job to worry about, so why was she considering going back on a subway train she didn't need to take anyway?

No amount of rational thinking could stop her from doing it, however, so she walked the few blocks to the subway station where she'd got on the last time, and forbade herself from thinking any further on it as she got on the train. It was much quieter than the previous week, as if her seminary colleagues had taken up most of the carriage then, and June sat down.

She had almost convinced herself this wat just another week on just another train, no hidden agenda whatsoever, when Chloe plopped down next to her.

"What a day, huh?" she said conversationally, and June felt her eyes widen as she looked at her.

"Yeah," she said, inanely. "I'm just happy we don't have to stand this time."

"I don't know," Chloe answered. "I kind of liked rubbing against you."

June could feel her cheeks flaming, and she looked out the window at the darkness surrounding them. Chloe put a hand on her knee and trailed it upwards. June all but shrieked as she put a hand on Chloe's hand to keep her from reaching any further. She had never been this turned on in her life, and she wasn't quite sure whether she liked it. It was all very overwhelming, and what had she been thinking?

"This is my stop," she mumbled and got up, though they were nowhere near her house and she'd have to wait for another train to bring her home. She didn't look back at Chloe, didn't want to be seduced into staying, into getting more of whatever it was she had been offering.

"You are getting married," she sternly told herself. "Steven is a good guy. He doesn't deserve any of this."

* * *

Steven, as it turned out, was not a good guy. A week later, when she'd told Steven she'd be home late but, in the end, had decided to do the right thing and not take the subway that would get her close to Chloe, she walked in on him and his new assistant. Apparently, he slept with anyone who told him "You must be Steven", just to make sure.

"Please tell me you didn't sleep with my mom," she begged as she scoured the apartment for things of his she could toss out the window.

"Eww, no!" he said, but she could hear in the infliction in his voice that he meant 'I tried, but she wouldn't go for it'.

Disgusted beyond measure, with him for not caring about her one iota, with herself for falling for this ruse, she gathered all of his things for him and kicked him out. She couldn't believe this is what she'd spent the last year and a half of her life cultivating, what she'd given up Chloe for.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked her mom as they talked on Skype later that night, and her mother shrugged.

"I was embarrassed," she confessed. "I thought he was such a nice guy and I wanted you to be happy. I convinced myself this had just been a one-off, a drunken moment, some kind of cold feet, if you will. I'm sorry, bean."

June smiled tightly, needing all her muscles tensed up to keep from bursting into tears.

"I saw her again," she said, and this time her mom didn't keep her from talking about it, didn't try to convince her soulmates were a bad idea. Maybe she'd seen that non-soulmate love could hurt just as bad, or maybe she just thought she should humour June when she was feeling so down, but in any case, June was grateful. It felt like Chloe was all she had left now, and underneath the pain of being cheated on, the hurt of not being good enough, a part of her felt like that wasn't such a bad thing.

* * *

June decided to focus on work for now. She had to heal from what had happened before she could figure out whether Chloe was what she wanted. This was the time for ice cream and romantic comedies; once she was back on her feet, she'd think about where to go from here.

As such, she was woefully underprepared when she ran into Chloe outside of her office building just over a week later.

"You weren't on the subway yesterday," Chloe accused, and June ushered her into the nearby park, not wanting her co-workers to overhear.

"I don't actually take that subway," she explained.

"See! I knew you were a stalker!" Chloe was bouncing on her feet, happiness radiating from her, and June had to shake her head to clear some of the brain fog away.

"Actually," she said, not sure why she should keep it a secret any longer, "I'm your soulmate."

Chloe stilled as if June had let her in on an awful secret.

"Please tell me you're joking," she said. When June didn't know how to respond, Chloe said: "You can't be my soulmate! The first words you said to me were hi! Not this!"

She yanked up her shirt and pushed her jeans down a little, showing June the words written on her hip. June desperately wanted to reach out and trace it with her fingertips, just like she'd touched the words on her own skin a million times, but Chloe's anger kept her at a distance.

"Remember how I told you we'd met before?" she asked. Chloe narrowed her eyes at her, and June wondered if she had ever felt this small in her life. "And you didn't know what I meant, and I said you were pretty drunk?"

"You're saying…" Chloe put the clothing back over her hip, and June took a step back at the anger in those words. She realized she didn't know this woman very well, just the flashes of her the universe had allowed her to glimpse.

"You're saying that I spent my life fighting against something I wouldn't even have remembered were it not for this stupid mark? Do you have any idea how fucked up it is, how it messes you up, to have the words _you're not real_ etched into your skin?!"

"I'm sorry," June whispered, knowing the words were inadequate at best, but she didn't know what else to say. "I never meant to hurt you."

"You denied my very existence!"

"I'm sorry!" June said again, fighting against the tears that were threatening to fall. "I was drunk, and you seemed like you had stepped out of a dream. I thought I was hallucinating you, I thought the alcohol was messing with my mind and showing me what I wanted to see. I thought..."

_you weren't real_, she ended the sentence in her head, but she could stop herself just before uttering the words out loud.

"What did I answer?" Chloe asked, and she grabbed June's wrist. "I know I saw something written on here the other day."

"I know, right," she read, and she dropped June's wrist in disgust. "I know, right. Obviously, I had no idea what you said and was responding to whatever my brain turned your words into. This is hell."

She turned around and started walking away from June.

"Chloe!" June called after her.

"No, June," Chloe said, without even turning around. "We're not doing this. You and me is never going to happen. EVER."

And she left. If June thought Steven leaving had broken her heart, this was breaking her very existence. She had never felt this alone.

* * *

Rationally Chloe knew what was happening. Her parents had always told her that refusing a soulmate bond was possible, but it would hurt, both physically and mentally. The universe really wanted to get its way and would keep pushing and pushing and pushing until it had to concede that you wouldn't be swayed. The aching in her bones, the crying at the drop of a hat, the empty feeling, it was all just metaphysics. She wasn't really dying, it just felt that way.

"How long will this last?" James had come by to check up on her, and Chloe was grateful and angry at the same time. She didn't want anyone to see her like this, but it felt good to have someone care anyway. They were sitting on the couch, her head in his lap, his hand in her hair. It felt intimate in a way her empty soul latched onto, and she felt almost guilty for how much she enjoyed snuggling into her best friend.

"Dad said a couple of weeks to a couple of months." She rolled her eyes, ignoring the pain in her head it caused. "Mom launched into this whole lecture about how I was bringing this onto myself and why didn't I just get back in touch with this lovely young lady and then I tuned her out."

They fell into a companionable silence.

"Aren't you glad you don't have one of those right now?" Chloe asked.

"I had mine removed," James said, and Chloe looked up in shock, her aches forgotten for now.

"What?!" she shrieked. "But... the risks!"

"I didn't care at the time." James looked straight ahead, not meeting her eyes. Chloe knew a better person would tell him he wouldn't have to tell her, but she wasn't so far gone that she thought she was a good person yet, so she waited for him to continue.

"Isabelle and I grew up together. Her first words to me were baby babble, as our parents often put us together before we could even talk. It was a meaningless string of letters. I hated it so much."

Chloe fought the urge to push her hands over her ears, suddenly not sure she wanted to hear this story. Was nobody happy with their soulmate? Was it a stupid trick the universe played on you? Were you picked for ultimate torture instead of undying love?

"There's so much pressure when you meet your soulmate pretty much directly after birth. We felt... stifled by each other, as if our very growth was hampered by having the other around. Our parents were delighted of course and only kept pushing us more and more together. When puberty hit, we lashed out, the both of us. I slept with every girl who wanted to. She refused to talk to me or anyone else, retreating into her own world where people didn't matter. The moment she turned 18, she left. I have no idea where she is, or if she's even alive."

The apartment was silent, and Chloe drew penises on James' leg with her finger.

"You could have died," she whispered. "Only 50% chance of survival if your soulmate is still alive."

"I know." James hugged Chloe a little closer, as if to convince her he hadn't died, he was here. "At the moment I didn't care. I wanted to become an actor, and I didn't want to have to talk about her every time someone saw the babble. And I wanted to live a new life, without her weighing me down. I figured I'd never fully live with those words anyway, so the 50% chance of living with the surgery was better than the 0% of an actual life I had without it."

Chloe cried, cursing her body for being weak. James had to notice - his jeans were getting wet, for starters - but he didn't say anything. He might have been crying too; Chloe had no way to tell without turning her head and that would definitely show her tears.

"Do you think it ever works out?" she asked, keeping her voice so low she could pretend she hadn't actually said it.

"Your parents did," he pointed out, and Chloe scoffed. "I know you don't like them very much, but they do seem happy. Luther finally found his, and they're awfully lovey-dovey."

"What? No!" Chloe sat up, this new piece of gossip too good to lie down for, her tears forgotten for now. "How did they meet?!"

"At some event or other, I don't remember the details. Kane was sitting at a table with only one chair left, and when Luther asked if he could sit there, Kane looked him over and said 'Yes, please'."

"Boring." Chloe deflated a little. "I was so sure it'd have something to do with sex. Oh well, not everyone can have such a dramatic story as mine, I guess."

"You can still be happy," James said, looking at her with more tenderness than she thought her puffy and bloaty existence deserved. He reached to brush a hair out of her eyes, but Chloe had had enough sappiness for one day.

"Could you please go?" she said, and to James' credit he didn't look hurt, he didn't protest, he just got up from the couch, said goodbye and left, leaving Chloe alone with the maelstrom of emotions that were threatening to drown her.

* * *

"Would you give me a chance?" June asked, her eyes wide as she hung on to Chloe's arm.

"No!" Chloe said, trying to shake her off.

"Please?"

"No!" The word bounced off the wall and got louder and louder, drowning out everything else except for a steady drum beat.

Groggily Chloe opened her eyes as her subconscious realised it wasn't a drum, someone was knocking on her door. She got up, trying to ignore how gravity was dragging on her painful limbs, and opened it.

"June," she said, not half as surprised as she should be. "A stalker too, I see."

"You look awful!" June exclaimed as she made her way in without asking for permission. "Shouldn't you be in bed? Have you gone to the doctor?"

Chloe let out a humourless laugh.

"A doctor won't help, June," she said. "Don't pretend you don't know what's going on."

She waved vaguely between the two of them, hopefully encompassing all she couldn't say with the headache drowning out her thoughts, and sat back down on the couch. June's eyes widened.

"I did this to you?!"

"Don't flatter yourself," Chloe snapped. "I did it, by making my own choices, by refusing to let the universe making them for me. Now could you please go."

"But I don't want to," June whispered. She was standing in the middle of the room, halfway through taking off her coat, and now seemingly stuck there. As if taking it off any further would be impolite but putting it back on completely went against everything she'd come to do. "I want to be with you."

"You don't even know me," Chloe sighed, lying down and closing her eyes in an attempt to block June out.

"But I do!" June exclaimed. Then, softer: "I do. I know that when you were 8, you scratched insults in all of your dolls because you hated that they had it easier than you. I know you hate your mother because having her as a mom meant you could never be a normal girl. I know chocolate makes you happy, but sex makes you happier."

"Do you not see how creepy this is?" Chloe asked as she struggled to sit up. "How do you know all that?"

"I've been dreaming about you since I was a little girl," June confessed. "My mom wouldn't let me talk about you, but I always looked forward to going to bed, always hoped you'd be there again. When the time came for me to find a job, nothing made more sense than to come to the city where I thought you were."

"You're chasing a fantasy," Chloe said. "I'm not the girl of your dreams. I don't know what pretty picture you painted in your head, but-"

"Who said anything about it being pretty?" June scoffed. "I saw a lot of things I didn't want to. You can be cruel and callous and don't seem to care about anyone else but you."

"You're here to save me then," Chloe inferred.

"Stop being impossible!" June all but stomped her feet in anger. "You always go after what you want. Why don't you want me? You were so excited when you thought I was your stalker. It's not fair that me being your soulmate means you won't even give me a chance!"

To Chloe's horror, June was actually crying now, and she quickly closed her eyes again, pretending not to see.

"You are letting the universe control your life," June said. "You're just doing the exact opposite of what it wants. You can pretend all you like that that's making your own choices, but that's bullshit. You're just being contrary and it's killing you. And me."

The last words were spoken so softly Chloe wasn't sure she had been meant to hear them.

"I will leave now," June said. "And I won't come back. I'm not planning on forcing myself on you. You deserve better than that."

Later Chloe would realise it was that last line, those last five words, that made her do what she did, but at the time she had no idea what she was doing. She had to push the words out, her need to not give in to the soulbond warring with June's analysis of what she was doing, and how it wasn't the defiance she thought it was.

"Please come back," she whispered just before June shut the door, and with her eyes still closed she could hear June turning around, her coat dragging over the floor.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Chloe."


End file.
